Chaz nodded as he leaned close to his friend’s strained face. “Gotcha. Been there, done that… in my dreams. Then what happened?”
“My grandfather walked in!” Marty blurted, loud as a firecracker. “Picked up the book and read some. Gave birth to a half ton endangered white rhino on my bedroom floor. Then in comes Grandma, sees, and has another baby rhino. That’s one animal that won’t be extinct if they can help it. They saw Seut’s stuff and figured it was mine. Began ripping through my room like CIA until they found the stuff that was mine. Screamed, prayed, threatened. Put me in Sadlers with the dopers, gangbangers, and rat-rapers. Shrinks kept me two weeks, charged Granddad six grand, told him if I didn’t stop reading horror I’d grow cunts in my palms and be a serial killer. When I got home, my room’d been scoured with bleach. The books and mags were gone: mine, Seuter’s, and—sorry, bro—those I borrowed from ya. The original artwork from Babyguts Rumba and In Heretic Blood Christened thrown out. All my Rob Zombie CDs trashed. They’d tacked posters of puppies and camping on the walls. A collection of country music CDs on my shelves—yecchh! And a bunch of Hardy Boy mysteries—what century do they think we’re living in? A new mattress on the bed, new sheets. No black clothes. Even all new tidy whities. Ever hear anything so sick? And they think I’m nuts?”
The store was across the street. Hannah was already there with Zeke Banocek. It was hard to see her apple ass so far away as the couple walked around the building. Not that Chaz didn’t know the curves and center crease by heart. But it was Frank’s daughter, Roseanne, Rosie, who he dreamed about.
“Like I was saying before I got so gut-wrenchingly sidetracked. Ya getting any at the git-n-slit?” Marty waggled centipede eyebrows as knowingly as any eighteen-year-old boy not yet introduced to the genuine carnal event could. Not for lack of trying.
Nobody dared call it this around Frank, even though its real name was suggestive enough: Bunny’s Quick In-N-Out. It was the only convenience store in this part of the neighborhood since public indignation closed Reddie-Eddie’s.
Difficult to believe in an age of promiscuity—at least for teens more popular than Jizz and Swallow (the latter being Marty’s nickname, due to his birdy thinness)—that boys who could hook up with willing girls for free would bother to pay for it here. Roseanne dropped out of school in December, she was there now hanging around her father’s store with two other drop-out girlfriends, Lysette and Rita. Hannah joined the trio about 4:00. The boys (those with means) came in droves, played video games, drank frozen Sluggs (so named for the boneless creatures they resembled while being dispensed), bought shiny square packets of ribbed pre-lubed condoms, and hooked up with Rosie or one of her semi-pro troupe.
Chaz knew where Zeke and Hannah were going. Where Frank used to maintain a public restroom. A couple years ago a crackhead named Timmy Yale was beaten and knifed to death back there, most of his insides slipping down the toilet and his brains splattered on the wall behind it. Cops didn’t swab up crime scenes after they collected their evidence. Frank refused to pay a cleaner. He turned the water off and told people to go to the Burrito Bobo to piss.
Chaz sneaked a peek his first day on the job, not sure what he expected. Mirrors on the ceiling? A waterbed? It was only a tiny convenience store restroom. He’d cracked the door and put a nervous eye to it. Odors of stale musk wafted out like an old-fashioned ironing board down from a closet, vertical to horizontal mass, slapping him in the face. Dusty in layers over his nose hairs, gagging in the back of his throat. He’d imagined he’d smell perfume, minty mouthwash, the special scratch and sniff centerfold art of the dungeon basement in Stedman Glee’s super savage underground novel, The Turnkey.
But the water had long ago drained from the toilet. The cops took most of Timmy’s remains for the coroner. There was dried blood and pinky-gray clots on the walls, down the outside of the toilet and in the sink, like a Strawberry Slugg dispenser gone haywire.
The lidless bowl overflowed with used condoms. The floor was littered with them. When Chaz stepped inside, it was like stepping on the spongy carcasses of worms.
Chaz wondered if part of the attraction was the grossness. He knew by experience how scenarios outside the norm, especially those mixing sex with death, appealed to the rebellious nature in the young. They’d do it in meatlockers, cemeteries, morgues. Squirting buttermilk seed in the Reaper’s eye to show they were unafraid. True of even the so-called good kids who wouldn’t touch the sort of material Chaz read but who thought Scream was, like, ooh, the most terrifying film ever made. Sheesh.
The only thing that seemed out of place was a contraption with two vertical bars at each end with two horizontal bars between them, one over the other. A pair of red silk scarfs were tied to the top of the uppermost horizontal bar. What was that for?
“Are ya kidding?” Chaz now replied sourly to Marty. “I was pure gonads when I landed this job. I figured it made me a shoe-in… or a crotch-in.”
“Not part of the employee benefits package?”
Chaz sighed, puffing downturned lips into a long-suffering pout. “What benefits? I don’t even get a discount on the snotdogs. Plus, I have to put up with Frank.”
His watch: 4:02. He slapped his moist palm to his forehead. “Shit be damned!” He started running, a waddling lope uncomfortable to do or to watch. “I’m dead. Come by later. I’ll sneak ya a free Slugg!”
“Can’t. On a short leash,” Marty called after him. He stuck an arm up in a farewell salute Chaz didn’t see. “Sure wish I lived at your place. Your folks don’t even care.”
Chaz muttered, “No, they don’t.”
««—»»
“You’re late!” shouted Frank Bunny.
It had taken another minute to cross the street against the light, dodging traffic. Three minutes, then, by the time he pushed open the door. As if the free world depended on 180 seconds.
“If you can’t make it after school by walking, try jogging, Mr. Chisholm. Not only will you arrive promptly but you’ll stop looking like a plate of moo shoo pork.”
Frank grinned cruelly. There were belching laughs from the boys working up adrenalin plugging arcade games, pausing in mid-alien-kill to stare pitilessly at Chaz. (Like they had any room to talk. Not like there was a game in the place less than fifteen years old.) Rosie and her girls tittered.
Chaz’s head steamed. Unfair, a voice whimpered in his mind. It’s not my fault I’m this way.
This jerk blew up women and kids. Joined foreign and corporate armies because America didn’t have enough wars. Bet Frank found that funny—until one of those jokes blew up in his face. Or, rather, under his feet. And folks think there’s no such thing as karma?
“You keep being late, boy, you can stick a fuse up your ass as think you got a job! How come you always smell like either lighter fluid or rubbing alcohol? Got a skin disease? Relieve Sid! Past time for him to clock out!” Always shouting. Had the explosions made him deaf?
…took both legs …you still got balls, old fart, or did they disintegrate kissing plastique?
(Frank fathered Rosie. Still had balls.)
Chaz’s own balls crawled into his scrotum, making themselves a smaller target. If they’d had tails, those tails would’ve been tucked between their legs—if they’d had legs.
Sid exited the counter, shoulders hunched in defeat. Chaz sympathized. Sid worked from 7:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., putting up with Frank’s remarks about Sid’s zitskin. Fortunately, Frank spent most of his time in the storeroom which doubled as his office.
Chaz only had until 10:00 P.M. before Mitch arrived for the night shift. Chaz’d take six hours of crap over nine any time, especially since Frank usually went home at 8:00.
Rosie went out the door with Josh Levin. She paused to give Chaz a teasing smile. She smelled his hunger. She didn’t snicker as she had a moment ago, only giving him a glance. You know where we’re going and you can’t AND YOU WANT TO SO BAD.
Chaz stared through the door’s glass walls a
s the couple headed for the rear of the building, perfect square encasing the latex circle vaguely outlined in the breastpocket of Josh’s thin shirt. Another worm shell on the bathroom floor, only thing left of its flesh a spoonful of sour vanilla-colored brains in the tip.
Chaz’s heart sank. He’d never feel those underfoot as others did. While carefully balanced—since the only way to perform in that room must be standing up.
At the end of his first week, Chaz had cashed his pay check, shyly offering Roseanne fifty dollars. Her smile was the kind he’d expect from the Mona Lisa if she had a sudden mean thought. Then Rosie’d softly shaken her head, golden hair across her shoulders and cheeks.
“Just a blowjob?” he pleaded.
Hell, that was more than she got for the whole Bunny hop.
Rosie only rolled her eyes, fluttered her heavily mascara’d lashes, and again shook her head. She’d looked down at her feet in high-heeled sandals, gold toe ring with her name engraved on it, followed by a tiny rosebud. Her hair was a burnished cloud at sunrise, mist moving in an undetectable breeze, leaving no doubt that she’d never perform anything with him if he signed over his entire paycheck every year for a week.
Bad enough she hadn’t bothered to utter a simple “No.” But then she’d leaned forward, offering him a spectacular view of her small yet well-shaped breasts, lips parted slightly in a pause pregnant with fantasies.
(Was she on the verge of changing her mind? His heart leaped.)
She’d replied, “I have standards, Mr. Jizzum.”
Worse than any demeaning fat joke he’d ever endured.
She’d wrinkled her nose—he wafted lighter fluid this time.
A line formed at the counter. Chaz rang up their purchases. Two more studlies bought rubbers. An old guy with a slippery toupee paid for canned chili and a six-pack of Voodoo beer. A few kids poked through left-over candy eggs, marked down from Easter, sitting in a basket by the register, moderately melted and deformed. They didn’t buy. Rita wanted a Cherry Mash—something Chaz found hilarious. He made two banana Sluggs (resembling thick septic mucous from infected sinuses) and four cola ones for a girl scout pack. They could only afford five after they counted their money. Frank was nowhere to be seen.
Chaz pushed it toward them. “Take it. I don’t want to pour it out.”
“Thanks!” they sang in klutzy unison.
“That was nice,” said the final person in line, a beautiful woman with a thicket of blue-black hair, dressed in an expensive black dress. The kind of clothes found only at Ice Matter in the mall, where the coolest deathers shopped.
“Providing the owner doesn’t see and I don’t have to die,” Chaz replied, trying not to stare open-mouthed. His fingers fumbled over her purchase—a box of tampons. He kept looking at her. “Aren’t ya an actress?”
“Yes,” she said, pleased to be recognized.
“I’ve seen ya. I just don’t remember where.” He fidgeted. This might be insulting, worse than not recognizing her. “Ya were in a movie with trees.”
Lame-o.
“I’ve only been in four films,” she admitted. “The parts haven’t exactly been coming fast and furiously…”
“Parts…” Chaz mumbled, confused. Then he repeated it with emphasis, “PARTS! You’re Renae Hawthorne!”
She laughed. “Amazing. I was Spam Number 2. I walked out of the cabin, into the trees, and took an axe in my midsection. I don’t think anyone else in the country knew who I was. Much less any producers or directors.”
“Great body. I mean, ya made a great dead body. A corpse, ya know?” Chaz blushed, head hot again.
Renae smiled. “I know what you mean. Thank you, sweetheart.”
“The other movies were Flashlight, The Nietzsche Worm, and The Mouth Tailer!” Chaz blurted.
Renae was impressed. “Wow… The Mouth Tailer wasn’t even released.”
“It was. I ordered it out of the back of a catalog. It was in Japanese, but it was great.”
“I still didn’t have any lines.”
“Someone as great as you doesn’t need lines,” Chaz told her seriously.
Rosie had been gone longer than usual. Right, Josh was an especially cute senior. Chaz checked the clock. Rita and some wrestling team hulk waited by the newspaper rack, headlines reading, TRIPLE X SLAYER CAUGHT.
Finally, Rosie returned. The ridges of areola around her nipples made sweat-circles in her halter top.
Chaz handed Renae her change and a bag with her purchase. Renae leaned over the counter and kissed his cheek, saying to him, “You’re a darling. Thank you for making me feel special today.”
She waved a pale, elegant hand, then turned and passed Rosie on her way from the store. Rosie stared, twinkle temporarily gone.
Disbelieving what she’d witnessed, Rita asked Chaz, “You know Renae Hawthorne, that Goth chick from TV?”
He just smiled, her kiss warm on his skin. That was where he saw her every night—on The Goth Channel. In the car, waiting for her, was Lenora Strang. Renae whispered something to her and both exquisite women blew him kisses as they drove away.
He and Marty watched the channel all the time and he’d trouble placing her, save for a few low-budget film parts?
Just last week Renae Hawthorne interviewed freakrocker Klovis Karloff. He’d asked if it was true she was dating Edgar Allan Poe. Typical.
Lenora Strang had been in at least half a dozen movies, usually as the heroine, even though three films never made it to theaters and could only be seen on The Goth Channel. On the channel, gems of home-cranked gruesex were shown every Sunday morning on a segment called “The Alternative Pulpit”. Making die-hard enemies out of the religious right, including the church Chaz’s mother attended.
Rita sneered as the women’s car pulled away. “Pervert bitches.”
“Gorgeous, well-educated, and famous,” Chaz corrected. “They’d only ever stop here to buy something quick. They’d never hang out in this dump.”
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Josh threatened him. “There’re ladies present.”
“There certainly were,” Chaz admitted.
Rosie twinkled now, either because Josh had stood up for her, or she was too stupid to catch the insult Chaz had thrown.
Just the same, Chaz was disgusted with himself. Wasn’t it pitiful that a lonely, overweight youth…forced to relieve intolerable hormonal pressures through frequent auto-eroticism…would be enamored of a girl named Rosie?
– | – | –
Chapter 6
Sam Kriger waited for the doctor. He snorted, nostrils leaking gummy treacle. Pale green room. The same shade his ‘number 3’ turned as he mashed his thumbs on her windpipe. Usually strangulation caused them to go cyanic blue as the blood starved for oxygen. But this slut was jaundiced, probably had a rotten liver from drugs and booze or had shared a few too many needles. Yellow and blue made green.
He tried not to sulk. The media wasn’t interested; he didn’t spill blood. They didn’t understand the special magic made from the sheer force of squeezing the life out of a woman.
Don’t they know I’m a force of nature? Fire and air, earth and water. Elemental. Combined to be the mightiest worldly, most heavenly potential, riding life into the shadows. Beyond the kid’s stuff of the merely, drearily red. Absolutely anyone could let blood. Housewives pricked their fingers or set out mousetraps. Children scraped knees or tortured butterflies. Guys making quacky-wacky ducks to sell at flea-markets sliced off digits on their state-of-the-art Shopsmiths.
It took no primitive investment of infinite and enduring stone.
Sam’d ridden them to their deaths, possessing the air trapped in their lungs, the fire of their flesh trying to maintain their lives, the water of sundered spirits trickling upward… skyward… then down into the earth, his earth, so these spirits sank instead of soared. Could any fifth estate peasant comprehend? No, they must have Hollywood: all singing, all dancing, all dismembering, glitter gory grimy Gray’s Anatomy ta
p-dancing toward the edge, victims feet strapped onto their shoes and wearing the victim’s pretty face over their own ugly ones. Stab wounds to groins, shotgun blasts to faces, chainsaws pruning limbs, massacres most bloody. Fire trapping dozens. Bombs until humanity rains. Blowtorches to cribs in maternity wards. AK-47’s where people knelt to pray.
Hocus-pocus, not real sorcery. Not genuine revelation.
Tasteless displays. So plebeian. The difference between them and him was a preference for order over anarchy. Their artless convulsion was mere waste. His, alchemy and apocalypse.
And this flawed public preferred hacks and hacksaws.
I can give them what they want if only I can get out of here.
I’ll give them Chop-Suzy, served thong-up and sunnyside eyes, runny as yolk, raw hamburger served steak tartare with a glass of beer wrung from her bladder. How hard can it be? Of course, I’d do it my way first: the power and might, crossing over into the generative storm.
Then I’ll start cutting.
Give the sweating faithful what they crave. I might get to like it. I doubt it. It’s messy. I’d have to scrub my hands with pumice, snort boiling water to get reek from my nostrils.
Even Jesus Christ had to die an excruciating death in crucifixion before the fools became faithful. After all, they don’t show their symbol of belief in him to be a figure rising from the dead, do they? No, they depict his gory demise upon the cross.
Sam leaned forward and down as well as he could, considering how they’d restrained him. He rubbed his runny, itchy nose, leaned back, stretching to rub his hand on the wall behind him. This how the room became green, ha, he mused.
Season of the Witch Page 6